This chip has USB capabilities which is why we see it used in a ton of projects. Almost all of them (including this USB input device post) use a very large DIP package. [Natsfr] went a different route, designing for the TQFP package to keep the drilling ot a minimum. The layout includes a crystal and USB-mini port, but it also breaks out the I/O pins on the chip. The red box above shows the quick fix he used on the VCC line as the board trace was shorting on the USB jack housing.

He didn’t drill out the holes for most of the breakout pins on this prototype. There’s just one header populated for programming the PIC chip. But he does have some plans for the first board. He’s going to use [Texan’s] AVR programming firmware for PIC to turn it into a USB AVR ISP programmer.

Hello,
I must admit there is no innovation in this little project. This was not the primary goal. I want to share a lot of my PCB I used for prototyping on this repository.
One of my main problem when I have an urgent need for some prototype is to find a suitable PCB to etch without doing schematic and layout.
For a bigger project you can take a look to the previous post on the blog concerning XPLduino.